Embossment of greeting cards is known in the prior art, but heretofore, to applicant's knowledge, such embossment has been carried out by means of metal dies, which are mounted in a press and operate in conjunction with a plastic counter to emboss a selected design onto paper stock used to form greeting cards. Such metal dies are expensive to produce and to maintain, and add considerably to the cost of producing embossed greeting cards. The more intricate the design, the greater are the costs of furnishing a metal embossing die. An embossed greeting card gives a three-dimensional contour to the conventional two-dimensional greeting card design and usually adds considerably to the aesthetic appeal of the card.
Various patents are known which relate to and are generally pertinent to the environmental area of making molded printing plates.
One of these is U.S. Pat. No, 250,239 to C. H. Hansen dated 1881, which discloses a method for making a molded printing plate which comprises a top tinfoil surface and a backing surface of plaster-of-paris, and wherein the tinfoil is indented through a layer of adhesive material by means of a stylus to produce the finished printing plate.
Pat. No. 2,826,811 dated Mar. 18, 1958 to A. Shikes discloses a hand process for metal working utilizing the steps of impressing a design upon soft metal by hand operation and by working the metal plate over a pattern until the entire design has been worked into the metal plate.
Pat. No. 4,001,062 dated Jan. 4, 1977 to Iisaka et al discloses a process for the reproduction of works of art or other artifacts by forming a mold which reproduces in negative form the surface irregularities of the original, and preparing a transparent moldment in the mold, and then preparing a photographic reproduction of the original to the same scale and joining the moldment and the reproduction in registry. The use of glass fiber cloth or mats with a hardenable silicone liquid to form the mold is taught in this patent.
None of these prior art patents discloses applicant's method for production of a resinous-like embossing plate for use in embossing a selected design into a paper greeting card, nor the relatively low cost embossing plate product resulting from the method.